Coalition and Opposition: Get a Grip

At key points before and after the election in May 2010, the constituent parts of the Coalition variously said:

There would be no increase in VAT

Child Allowance was safe with them

They would vote against an increase in tuition fees

Bank bonuses would be curbed

The banks must be broken up

There would be a fuel duty regulator to stabilise prices

Rarely can there have been so many failed undertakings in so short a time. That the government is not under attack from right, left and centre, is to do with the fact that Labour took critical time out to navel gaze, publish memoirs and elect a leader whom they did not want, who in turn has been off to a slow start, with has all his top team in shadow jobs over which they appear to have little grasp.

Thus Cameron, Clegg et al can bungle, posture and proclaim without delivery or deliver what they said they would abhor. This peculiar dysfunction at the heart of our democracy cannot go on for much longer. The Westminster village and its masters in Whitehall need to pull themselves together.